


You Say Tomatoe, I Say Tomato

by happy29



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5957113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happy29/pseuds/happy29
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray comes home frustrated with Fraser's boss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Say Tomatoe, I Say Tomato

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for all the nit-pickers who can't read past spelling differences...

“Your boss sucks,” Ray Kowalski exclaimed loudly as he slammed a stack of manila file folders onto the kitchen counter.

Fraser’s head snapped up immediately distracted from the vegetables he was cutting up for dinner. He dropped the knife and caught a file as it sailed off the counter.

“Inspector Danville?” Fraser questioned as he returned the file folder to the stack and straightened the remaining folders. Ray rolled his eyes and tossed his backpack onto an empty chair.

“Do you have _another_ boss?” Ray snapped. “Yes, _Inspector Danville_. He sucks.”

Fraser went back to the vegetables he was cutting and chopped up the remainder of the onion. He pushed the chunks off the cutting board into the skillet with the mushrooms and asparagus. He gave the mixture a sprinkle of olive oil and a quick stir before turning on the heat and covering the pan with a clear lid. “What did you do this time?” Fraser asked as he leaned against the counter.

“What did _I_ do?” Ray asked in annoyance as he jabbed a finger into his own chest. “Why do you assume it was something _I_ did?”

“I’m sorry, but the last time you came home this irritated with the Inspector, the two of you had been _accidently_ handcuffed together for three hours.” Fraser shook his head and tried not to laugh. He picked up a nearby towel and began to dry his hands. “But you’re right. I should not have assumed that you were in the wrong.”

“For your information,” Ray pointed a finger in Fraser’s direction, “it was that rotten kid that we were trying to protect that handcuffed us together. And if I recall, Danville was the one who let the kid see my cuffs to begin with because he didn’t want to get his lanyard all dirty.” Ray grabbed a bottle of beer out of the fridge and popped the top. It skittered across the counter and stopped when it hit Fraser’s flannel clad elbow. Ray dropped himself onto a kitchen chair, the fight suddenly gone from his veins. “This whole liaising thing is starting to suck.”

The smile faded from Fraser’s face at the sound of his partner’s words. “You regret moving here with me?”

Ray dropped his head and toyed with the sweaty label on his beer bottle. “How did you do it all those years in Chicago?” Ray picked at the label uselessly with his short nails. One of these days he was going to have to stop biting them. “How did you get along with Welsh and everyone else when you did things so differently?”

“Everyone has their own way of doing things, Ray. My method of police work is different from yours and different from my fellow officers. But when we all bring our own qualities to the job, we make for a stronger unit because of our differences.”

“Danville thinks I’m stupid,” Ray muttered unable to meet Fraser’s eyes.

“Ray, that’s what this is about?” Fraser tossed the towel into the sink and sat down in the chair next to Ray. He reached out and peeled Ray’s wet fingers from the beer bottle and laced the fingers together. “You’re anything but stupid. You’re one of the brightest detectives I know or have had the pleasure of working with.”

“God, I know I’ve struggled in the past with spelling and grammar and I don’t always use the right words…”

“Ray,” Fraser began gently. “You are not stupid.”

“Then why does Danville keep sending my reports back to me and demanding that I fix them. I use spell check all the time and that new grammar check thingy they have in the new program. I just don’t get it.” Ray started picking again at the label with his free hand. “If I’m going to liaise with you up here in Freezerland, I gotta know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Do you have the report that he wants you to fix?” Fraser questioned as he got up to stir the vegetables on the stove. He turned the heat to low and returned to the table. Ray pointed to the stack of files on the counter. “All of those need corrected?”

“Yes. I’ve gone over them a dozen times, Ben, and I just don’t see what is wrong with them.”

Fraser got up and read through the report in the top file, then through the second and third. His brow furrowed in deeper confusion with each new report he read. “I don’t understand. These all look fine to me. I would resubmit them.”

“I’ve already done that and he keeps telling me to fix them. He says there are spelling errors and he refuses to accept substandard reports.”

“He is a stickler for details…” Fraser tugged on his ear.

“You mean he’s anal…” Ray replied with annoyance filling his voice.

Fraser reread one of the reports and his face lit up as if a lightbulb went off in his head. “I think I know what the problem is.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“We are in Canada and you are using American spellings.”

“So what?”

“Well as you said yourself, Inspector Danville is a stickler for details.”

“No, I said he was anal.”

“None the less, in your report you wrote that the tire on the car was slit with a sharp object and no one in the surrounding neighborhood recognized the car.”

“Correct.”

“You spelled tire ‘t-i-r-e’ instead of ‘t-y-r-e’. Inspector Danville probably wants the report written with Canadian spellings.”

“God, he hates me already. I should just change it so he doesn’t keep getting irritated with me. Will you help me? I don’t know what all of your Canadian spellings are.”

Fraser shook his head ‘no’. “Read your report aloud, Ray.”

“Why? Just help me change them.”

“Humor me.” Fraser handed Ray the report on the top of the stack and Ray reluctantly read through the entire thing.

“Satisfied?” Ray asked as he tossed the paperwork onto the table.

“Did the report change any? Did the facts of the case change? No they didn’t. You shouldn’t have to change the way you write in order to please anyone. Nothing about the way you spell tire or neighborhood or humor affects what the word means.”

“He’s not going to accept it, Frase.”

“Yes, he will.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Lieutenant Welsh did the same thing with me.”

“He did?” Ray asked stunned.

Fraser nodded. “He wanted me to change all of my words to American spellings. I refused and one day stood before him and read my reports aloud to him. Neither way is incorrect. Whether you use American or Canadian spelling, it doesn’t change the facts of the case.”

“I never thought of it that way, but you’re right.”

“Inspector Danville is just going to have to broaden his horizons and get used to a different way of doing something but achieving the same results.”

Ray took a long swallow of his beer before standing up. He snatched his backpack off the chair beside Fraser and unzipped the zipper. Carefully he put the stack of folders into the backpack and zipped it closed. “I’ll drop these off tomorrow before we go on vacation. Thanks, Ben.”

“Anytime.” Fraser smiled fondly at his partner. “Would you like _tomato_ with your salad?” Fraser winked at Ray before planting a kiss to his lips.

 

 

 


End file.
